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Thanks I appreciate the input, Maybe i'll advertise for just sidewalk clearing and salting. I wouldn't mind doing driveways, but like you said it would take much longer, so maybe I could do a driveway if I were asked to.

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I live in the suburbs of Pittsburgh and in MY neighborhood with very few exceptions NOBODY has their driveway PLOWED. You simply can't do it, there's nowhere to plow TO and the drives aren't that large. Snowblowers and shovels is how you clear walks and drives here.

Honestly, the bigger problem is GETTING snow to clear in the first place. Sometimes we get FEET of snow and sometimes we get nothing. Its a crap shoot.

If you're in the right area, you can make a killing with a snowblower. It's all about finding areas with people who will pay, and who NEED the service. Not everyone will be able to do that. In my own neighborhood people do their own drives. If I want to make money, I need to head to another area.

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Yeah the winters are very strange, I lived in pittsburgh for about a year, and back home we got over a foot and in pittsburgh they only got a few inches, and I only live 4 hours away in central PA, it makes that big of a difference.

I think though I could clear a average driveway in maybe an hour, so if I charged 40-50 dollars, I wouldn't be losing out that bad

The big problem is, I worked full time, so I would only be able to go clear driveways in the evening, and most people I would think want it done asap.

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So, I have learned a great deal so far, and one thing I learned is its good to have a specialty. I thought about irrigation, I have a lot of plumbing experience, Ive used a trencher quite a few times and I have dug many many many holes, but to be honest irrigation seems like a pita, and I would defiantly have to hire an employee or two. So I was thinking maybe something along the lines of yard rejuvenation. Aeration, dethatching, fertilizing, water etc... to get the lawns looking as best as possible. And with that line of work, my name Peck's Lawn Care still fits the bill. I could probably do most of that work myself on top of mowing, I maybe would have to hire one employee.

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So I need some insight on adverting. I'm not really big on walking around and just handing door hangers out or knocking on doors, I feel that its invading a potential customers person space. Now when I go out and do work for my full time job, I never miss an opportunity to talk about my business, and yesterday I had a interested lady who said shes going to tell her friends and neighbors about me, she even called back to our office and told our secretary how nice and hard working of a guy I was, so thumbs up there.

Now I don't mind putting some door hangers around houses I work on, but I feel aimless walking around a neighborhood just hanging door hangers. I have door magnets with my name and phone number, I have my business on yellowpages.com, and I have signs in a couple yards.

What else do you guys think I can do, I know an add in the yellowpages book is going to be expensive and I don't know if its worth it for me right now. I also thought about running a newspaper add. I have had my business going for about a month now, and so far I have had only 1 real job, but I guess thats pretty good, it has to start somewhere, and his job may lead to a few other jobs.

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Be patient they will come....It's very hard waiting for the phone to ring but it will...Get some business cards made up and give them to everyone ! I agree about the door hangers, I think it annoys home owners more than it helps, just sayin...Stay focused and be positive...Good Luck...

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Doug, I have business card already, I had them attached to my door hangers I have handed out, have some on a bulletin board at the local general store, and I hand them out to anyone I do work for at my full time job.

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The ad is very "basic", but nice, and clean.
I suggest another photo though, as that one is "crooked" and not high resolution.

Also, I wouldn't link it (I noted you could click on it when I hovered over it) to a Photobucket account. You may have pics there that are not complimentary and nobody looking at your ad needs to be browsing random equipment images.

Do you use keywords in your ad?
Under my image ad, I usually add some text, and at the bottom, I list a ton of keywords which help lead people to my ad when they do a search.
Zip codes, town names, common lawn care terms - even misspellings of commonly misspelled terms.

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Hmm, it shouldn't be linked to anything, that was the only way I know of uploading a picture like that to craiglist. It was the html information from photobucket. On the other hand the only photos I have on photobucket are images from my lawn care business ;P

I didn't even think about adding tags, I'll do that right now! thanks!

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For instance today, I did my moms rental property, cut trimmed and blowed off the driveway and sidewalk. Took me about 75 minutes. By the estimator, I only need to charge $42.50 for the job. I have decided I will have a $20 minimum charge for just showing up at a place.

So at that I would be charging $62.50, does this seem about right. I'm actually charging her $60 to do it right now, but I want to figure this whole pricing gig out now.